Warri Refinery Crippled By
Disrepair, Corruption, Shuts
Down Despite official claims that Nigeria’s newly
refurbished refineries were making profits
and helping to combat fuel scarcity,
SaharaReporters has learned that the Warri
refinery in Delta State remains a drainpipe, a
symbol of the rot in Nigeria’s opaque and shady oil sector.

Less than two weeks after President Muhammadu
Buhari appointed Ibe Kachikwu as the new Group
Managing Director for the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the debt-riddled
Warri refinery is reportedly close to being
shutdown. SaharaReporters has obtained two daily reports about the operations of the Warri refinery.
The grim reports indicate that the refinery operates
at a huge loss that could cost the Nigerian
government close to N1.2 trillion per year. The documents reveal that the refinery barely
produces 2.3 million liters of gasoline, a mere drop
in the bucket compared to the 50 million liters
required to daily fuel consumption across Nigeria. The refinery processes about 11,865 metric tonnes
of crude oil. The crude is supplied via trucks and
vessels instead of through pipelines, which remain
significantly damaged due to the activities of
armed militants in the Niger Delta region. The
reports obtained by our correspondent also disclosed that several units for processing crude at
the Warri facility were currently shutdown. Part of the report revealed that, on August 11,
2015, a vessel MT Bade offloaded more than 1,200
metric tonnes of imported fuel at the refinery to
supplement the facility’s low production output. Part of the report showed that one pipeline for
pumping diesel from the refinery had been shut
down because of vandalization at Adeje, Delta
State. Pipeline ‘2C’ was also shut down, with a
crude oil supply source called Escravos Line
remained suspended. A huge crude oil supply line, UQCC, which is supposed to be protected by ex-
militant commander, Government Ekpemupolo
(alias Tompolo) also remained suspended. Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan and former
Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison Madueke, gave
approval for Ocean Marine Tankers (OMT) Limited,
founded by Captain Hosa Okunbor, Tunde Ayeni
and Mr. Ekpemupolo (Tompolo), to take over
delivery of crude to Warri Refinery. “It beats my imagination that, despite being paid
millions of dollars for pipeline surveillance and
protection, Tompolo and other Niger Delta militants
have not been able to restore pipeline sources to
the refinery. Tompolo is being paid by the NNPC to
safeguard pipelines that are currently not delivering crude to the [Warri] refinery. We are thus forced to rely on trucks to deliver
crude for refining and for delivering final products,”
one engineer at the refinery told our correspondent. The Rapele-Warri pipeline also remains
suspended. As a result, it costs the government $2
million per month to transport crude from Escravos
to the refinery. “The management of the refinery
spends $66,000 per day to transport crude for
refining,” one source said. The management of Warri Refinery is paid subsidy
of N34 per liter of fuel produced at the facility. A second report obtained dated August 18 2015
by SaharaReporters showed that the Warri refinery
had shut down its Crude Distillation Unit (CDU).
The CDU is the first stop in the processing of crude
and is the refinery’s main distillation unit and
engine room. “Once the CDU is down, technically the refinery is down,” said one inside source. Other dysfunctional units at the refinery include the
Vacuum Distillation Unit (VDU) and the Fluid
Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU). An engineer
disclosed that technicians at the facility had tried
for more than one week to start up the FCCU
without success. “The FCCU is the unit that increases the yield of premium motor spirit,” he
said. “If it’s working, the refinery should be able to
produce an additional two million liters of gasoline
per day.” Two sources in the oil sector told SaharaReporters
that no single repair had been done in a long time
by the refinery’s management. “That’s why it is
producing at loss,” one source said. Our sources stated that the crisis-prone Warri
facility currently has 30,948 cubic meters of crude
oil available for processing, with the quantity due
to last for a mere 2.6 days. A vessel, Mt African
Beauty, berthed on August 17 to discharge 15,000
cubic meters of crude which will also last for an additional day. As at press time, SaharaReporters
learned that 9,925 of the vessel’s shipment had
been discharged. The refinery’s technical problems have a long
history, our inside sources said. They claimed that
budgets for the repairs of the Warri Refinery
provided fodder for “repair scams” that benefited
some NNPC officials. “When President Buhari
came to office, the refinery was not repaired, but was just cranked up to impress him that the
refinery is in good condition. But the reality is
dawning on everybody that the refinery is close to
being shut down completely.”


Source
saharareporters.com/2015/08/20/warri-refinery-crippled-disrepair-corruption-shuts-down

The

I smell rat,..saharareporters?